Champion of Fame
by SugarcaneSoldier
Summary: Ron has sometimes been referred to as jealous of Harry's fame. Fortunately, he's got a very easy way to get a whole lot of it. Moderate Crackiness.


Ron stretched out in front of the shop that had been called Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes for nearly two decades now, relishing in his break. It was a small change, to move that apostrophe over a space, but it had meant the world to George when he'd joined him.

Besides, this had been much more enjoyable for himself. Being an Auror meant stricter hours than he would like – five days a week, every week, for as long as he had the job – and _much _more paperwork than he would like – nothing would be ideal, but the small amount that he didn't hand over to the other workers in the shop was bearable.

_This _job was much better. He worked how he wanted, when he wanted, and he got paid handsomely for his help in testing, designing, and marketing the thousands of products that the prank shop now sold.

He looked out at the Alley, trying to find someone that was looking at him in wonder. He found that a few people would wave politely, and one or two would look at him with star-struck gazes. None of them seemed to be truly _amazed,_ though.

It would be nice to be a bit more famous…

Not that he envied _Harry's_ level of fame – he'd gotten over his jealousy.

Besides, even he had his limits. Getting threats depending on how much he worked that week, whatever policy the Ministry was rolling out that he _might _be tangentially related to, the weather, and the position of the moon seemed a bit too much hassle to be worth it.

On one day when they'd gone out for drinks, Harry had even moodily bet Ron that _he_ wouldn't ever receive death threats for doing his job, and Ron had easily agreed to funding a vacation for Harry if he ever did.

Who'd seriously threaten someone who worked at a _joke shop?_

But… his brothers _were _known throughout Europe, in the right circles, and while he could argue that he was just as famous, there was never a clear winner in his personal discussions with himself.

Ginny had been a well-known Quidditch player, and she was a writer for a – mostly – redeemed Daily Prophet. And, of course, her husband was _very_ well known.

Said husband was arguably the most well-known wizards, besides maybe Grindelwald, Merlin, or perhaps another figure that Europe hadn't ever heard of out East or to the South.

George was the owner of a soon-to-be global business that sold pranking items to children everywhere. He gained their adoration and their parents' ire in equal measures.

Percy was almost the Head of a Department, and he moonlighted as a singer for the band that had finally overturned the Weird Sisters. Apparently, they were on tour now, and he was considering giving up his Department Head job for an ambassadorial job so he could be abroad more often.

Who knew all that singing in the shower would pay off?

Charlie was close to becoming the head of the largest dragon preserve in all of Europe. He was known for being an eligible bachelor, and he seemed to leave a trail of broken hearts wherever he went.

Bill was a world-renowned Curse Breaker and had standing offers from a few Departments of both the British and French Ministries of Magic to work for them. He'd even gotten an offer from Headmistress McGonagall to teach for a year about his subject to eligible NEWT students.

Speaking of which…

He smiled as his old Professor walked towards the store. He rose from his chair – an interesting thing made of cloth and plastic Hermione claimed Muggles used for beaches that he found wonderful anywhere – and smiled widely.

"With all the trouble you encouraged us not to get in, I didn't take you for a fan of pranks, Headmistress," he said cheekily.

The _old_ woman – because she was probably older than Dumbledore had ever been – gave him a _look_ that reminded him of what happened _after _all that trouble. "Lucky for your business that so many of us older folk have relatives to spoil. I've got five Great-Nephews who are looking to surpass anything you three ever did."

He smiled and opened the door. "A tall order, to be sure, but I think I might have a few things…"

He brought her around, giving her a tour of everything that wizards and witches nearing Hogwarts age might like, and she soon picked out over a dozen items to give them.

That she also picked up a few more to give to their parents in the hopes that the hellions might learn a bit of humility by getting pranked by their mother and father went unmentioned by Ron.

After that, things got quiet. "Can I offer you anything to eat? I've got nothing on Harry, but I'm sure that I could whip something up."

She shook her head and let her eyes wander around the checkout counter. "I'm afraid not, Mister Weasley. With the school year approaching, I never have an ounce of free time."

He nodded in acknowledgement, but before he could tell her the price – a Galleon under what she should pay, for old times sake – she seemed to see something else on the counter.

He followed her gaze, and sighed appreciatively. "They're not exactly popular, but I imagine you know where I got the idea for 'Confounding Chess Pieces,' right?"

She nodded and took a pair of the packaged potions before he could outline how they worked or what they did, though he was quick to rectify that. "Just sprinkle them on the pieces you're trying to change. It tricks all of the Chess pieces for any set of Wizard's Chess. I've seen them switch sides, act like a different piece, and, during a memorable game with Harry, they all turned on him for not being able to beat me."

Her eyes began to twinkle, and then confusion passed over her face. "Mister Weasley, do you remember, all those years ago, when I asked you what you wanted to do with your life?"

He blinked, and then scrunched up his face. "Eh… not really. I think I might've mentioned Quidditch? All I know is that you practically murdered Umbridge during Harry's interview," he said, smiling at his memory of Harry's reenactment of McGonagall's implication that Lockhart was more competent than that pink menace had been.

She too smiled. "I remember _that _as well," she got quiet, for a moment, also lost in reminiscing, before she shook her head. "I always wondered why you never pursued a career in Chess."

Ron blinked curiously. "That sort of thing exists?"

She gave him an exasperated look over her glasses, and he shuddered. "Merlin, you remind me of Hermione."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "My resemblance to your wife aside, I highly suggest you look into it. It might not be nearly as beloved as Quidditch, but there is a dedicated national following for the sport."

He shook his head and waved off her praise. "Flatter me too much and I'll begin to think you're trying to _replace _Hermione. I'm not _that_ good-"

She gave him another _look_. "Mister Weasley, you bested my personal Chess set – enlarged as it may have been – when you were _eleven_. It was able to defeat Dumbledore a time or two, and you were able to replicate his success when you weren't even a second year."

He decided to give her a skeptical look. "Magic has nothing to do with it. Harry's absolute rubbish at Chess."

She sighed. "I suppose that is true. Still, the British Tournament is being held in a few weeks time and I feel that you might place well. Even if you don't find it to your liking, you won't know until you try."

He paused, and then he thanked her for the advice. A few minutes of idle chatter passed – how was Hermione handling being hailed as a Divination prodigy, how had Rose and Hugo dealt with Professor Brown following Hermione's 'discovery' – and Ron was left alone in the store.

He looked at the packaged potions bottle, tracing the figure of a dazed, ruby-colored chess piece with his thumb.

A chess tournament?

Well, it wasn't like he lost all that often. Even Hermione had trouble getting anything more than a draw out of him, and she wasn't able to pull even that off if he wasn't distracted. Harry had complete confidence that even the Elder Wand wouldn't allow him to beat Ron in a fair game.

He blinked. Well, he'd do as had been suggested. He'd look into it and see if he liked playing in the big leagues. Eventually, he'd get soundly beaten by someone who spent their entire lives practicing and fade back into his regular, not-too-famous lifestyle.

Right?

-OxOxO-

Ron had been sweating bullets, but now, he was calm.

He wasn't _entirely _sure what bullets were, but Hermione and Harry had explained that they were small projectiles that moved very fast and could really hurt people, Wizards and Muggles alike. They had both used the expression to drive home their nervousness, and Ron felt that it was very prudent in his current situation.

After a week or two of looking into the national Wizard's Chess leagues and promising George that he'd come back in a month or two, he'd entered the tournament that McGonagall had mentioned.

According to one of the people he played against, his entrance into that tournament had given the event a much needed boost in capital and attention by the wider public. Everyone was interested in what he was doing, even if it was because he was a war hero and Harry's friend and a manager of WWW.

When he'd begun playing, everyone had been shocked at his ability to beat anyone who tried to play him, and he'd won a modest reward and a spot in the wider European Tournament that was being held a week later in Venice.

He'd made it a bit of a family vacation and brought along as much of the family that wanted to come along. It would probably be the last activity like this they attended before they headed off to school.

He had managed to win that event almost as easily as he had the British one. It was a bit different than the one in Britain, as there were three rounds for each player due to how few qualified to participate, but he managed to win each and every game he played.

Now, due to his unbroken record, he was partaking in a very _odd_ challenge.

The top players in Europe who he had all beaten in his run for the championship spot – Rowan Khanna, Catherinia Romanoff, Jean Delaceil, and Dolan Topo – were all playing him.

That was to say, he was playing five games of chess simultaneously. One against each of them individually, and a final game against the four of them working together.

He'd beaten all of them individually, and he was finishing up against their team effort. Catherinia seemed to be trying not to whip her wand out to silence herself, Jean seemed close to tears, and Dolan seemed ready to Apparate away.

Only Rowan was still standing strong and attempting to fight him off. They had been giving him a run for his Galleons, but…

"Rook to e6. Checkmate."

The game had been decided several moves ago, and Rowan was only letting it play out so that her pieces wouldn't get mad about admitting defeat.

He held up a hand, and each of them shook it. Murderously, sorrowfully, resignedly, and grudgingly, they all came and shook his hand.

There were no screaming fans like in Quidditch – something he missed from back in his school days – but there was applause, shaking hands, and smiling for photos.

He quickly searched the crowd, smiling as he spotted his family. Hugo and Rose were clapping just as energetically as everyone else, and Harry was right beside them. Hermione seemed to be somewhat exasperated, though he was sure her annoyed expression was due to her meeting with the Italian Minister for Magic earlier.

Ginny was also there with one of the other correspondents that covered Chess – he hadn't known that there was such a thing until Ginny had pointed out the tiny column in the paper – along with her and Harry's kids, who all looked pleased.

George had begged off coming – things were busier than ever in the weeks before school – but Mum and Dad had both come as well.

As he descended from the platform that they had played their games on – because there had to be a bit of grandiose showmanship in everything – he wondered just how far he could take this. There was supposed to be an International Championship in a few months, after all, and he was fairly sure an invitation to that was included in the winnings from this…

-OxOxO-

For the third time that day, Ron sat back as a dozen wizards and witches cast spell after spell on his chess pieces.

Charms and Transfiguration had been tried over a dozen times. Hexes and Jinxes had been exhausted. Now they were trying to use potions and, thanks to one particularly intelligent ICW Task Force member, alchemy.

Still, his pieces didn't change. They just sat there, hatefully glaring at the wizards and witches and looking towards Ron as if to ask him if they were serious.

He wasn't honestly sure, anymore. He'd come to the International Tournament with high hopes for placing decently well, and he'd gone on and beaten everyone without losing once.

He knew that at this point, people were beginning to wonder if he was cheating, but he honestly had no answer for them. Only a handful of the fifty matches he played had even been challenging, if he was honest.

Really, Harry was better at playing chess than some of them-

He blinked. Wait.

_Wait._

Had… had Harry gotten better as he played Ron, and he only _seemed _to be a bad player because Ron was so good?

And before he could continue _that_ train of thought, one of the wizards walked up to him, clearly frazzled. "We can't find anything wrong with your pieces, Grandwarlock Weasley."

He smiled insincerely. The title was a bit clunky, but Wizard's Chess had, according to Hermione and the leaflet he'd read in his hotel room, formalized around the same time that it had in the Muggle world.

"It's no problem at all. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll be heading off."

He took up his pieces and board and headed for the Portkey terminal. Honestly, if they were going to accuse him of cheating, they should at least have had the decency to accuse him of such a thing in front of the enraged Russian woman he'd beaten twice and fought to a draw once in front of the crowd of onlookers.

He spared a smile for the awed Ugandan woman – at least, that where her name tag said she was from – who ran the terminal and grabbed the Portkey – a frayed washcloth. He found himself spinning through space with a pull behind his navel.

He fought to keep his lunch down as he traveled. Even if he had more experience with Portkeys than either of his best friends, international ones turned anyone's stomach.

Soon – and nearly not soon enough – he was standing in an office in the Ministry, shaking his head and wondering how this all had happened.

He wound through the offices and corridors and hallways, giving a quick hello to those he recognized and a small bit of conversation to those he knew. After half an hour, he was standing in front of his wife's office giving a jaunty wave to her secretary and letting himself in.

The first thing that caught his eyes, as always, was his wife. As he had expected, she was quietly fuming. Her hair was growing larger and more frazzled than a nundu, and he could safely say that Harry and the cup of tea on the table were the only reasons she wasn't currently exploding.

He walked in, and Hermione glared at him weakly. "The man of the hour is finally here."

He couldn't help but smirk, and her glare intensified.

"Ten," she began, and his success could no longer protect his good mood from what looked like a rant of epic proportions.

"I have been contacted by no less than _ten_ magical heads of state from around the globe. _Five _of them accused me of attempting to rig a Tournament that I hadn't even _heard _of until six months ago. They could never specify as to what end, but they generally seemed to think that I wanted either glory for myself through my husband or for Britain and Ireland as a whole."

He nodded slowly, and then he winced as she took a deep breath. He saw Harry quickly conjure a pair of earmuffs, and he regretted not having brought his wand out when he got here.

"_Three_ of them were a bit more subtle about it and offered the Ministry help, gold, and political favors if I admitted that you were cheating."

She took another deep breath. Ron would swear to everyone from that moment on that Hermione had managed to get a bit of dragon claw in her Polyjuice instead of cat hair with how close she seemed to be to spitting fire.

"The last _two _congratulated me for my _Merlin-damned_ contributions to Divination, and they expressed a wholly inappropriate amount of admiration for my 'marrying a seer!'"

Harry seemed to be chuckling, and Ron would be too, if his ears weren't ringing. Honestly, the suggestion that he was good at any area of Divination, besides lying, was ludicrous. "Hermione, if you didn't want to be hailed as a genius, then you really shouldn't have tried so hard to show everyone up."

Her glare only subsided partially. "I didn't want to be known for telling the Wizarding World that _Pluto isn't a planet!_ I wanted to be remembered for my work on bettering the rights of Beasts and Beings and for stymieing corruption, not for advancing the study of a woolly subject with even woollier adherents!"

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Hey, we don't all get what we want."

Ron could almost hear the room freeze at that. Her expression of anger and frustration was frozen on her face, and Ron envied Harry as he conjured a brick wall between him and them.

Ron was going to regret saying such a thing.

And even as she tore into him for saying something "so utterly _daft_," he wondered who he could play against next. If there weren't any Wizards he could play against…

Maybe he could try to play against the Muggles? Harry had said they had a version of Wizard's Chess, and he'd even bragged about being able to beat his cousin at the game during their yearly get-together.

He couldn't do something that might break the Statute, obviously, but as long as no one realized he was a Wizard…

-OxOxO-

She was just tired now.

She wasn't angry, she wasn't frustrated, she wasn't even all that upset. She was just tired.

Well, that wasn't completely true. She looked down at the articles of the Daily Prophet and a Muggle newspaper, and she admitted that she was _also _exasperated beyond belief.

She looked up to see the nervous expression on her husband and their friend's faces. She had to admit that at least they remembered that they really shouldn't have done this.

She held up the copy of the Daily Prophet. Emblazoned across the front was the sensationalist title "_Weasley Confronts Muggle Chess Masters!"_ – even if they'd toned down the more outlandish content, they couldn't be bothered to choose something normal for a title.

She then held up the other paper that declared "_Grandmasters around the globe all lose to mysterious aficionado."_ She was fighting very hard not to lose her cool.

"Ronald."

He looked up from his internal debating, sheepish and not at all angry that she was bringing this up and expectant of a rant and…

She sighed. "_Ron._ I don't think I'm overstating things when I say that this is likely one of the biggest breaches of the Statute since we solved the Calamity and locked up Delphini. What in Merlin's name were you thinking?"

He nodded glumly. She looked to Harry to see that he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention.

She glared at him. "Harry. I know I'm sounding just a bit like Dumbledore with the whole 'I'm disappointed' speech, but you _knew_ that this sort of thing is illegal. _What the hell._"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "How was I supposed to know that Obliviate wears off if you don't do it right? Lockhart never got his memories back…"

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "That isn't _the point_, Harry. You're the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, you can't go around obliviating some high profile Muggles just so that Ron can play a few games of Chess!"

Harry just shrugged uncomfortably again. She turned to Ron, who still hadn't said anything.

"Well?"

He looked up at her. "Did you know that you sound a lot like McGonagall did a few months ago, when she told me about the Tournaments?"

She didn't let her glare slip. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Ronald."

He shrugged and then pointed to the two newspapers. "Look, it's not all bad. They're actually very interested in whoever beat them…"

He scanned the Daily Prophet at her unimpressed look. "Uh… some people are actually getting interested in Muggle sports now. Maybe we could just chalk this one up to… uh… improving Muggle-Magical relations?"

She stared at him, unblinking. Just as he contemplated flinching, she turned the newspapers around again, sighing and giving them another look.

The office was silent, except for a portrait in the corner that seemed to be doing its best to fill the void with coughing and the occasional scratch of its neck.

She looked up from both rather suddenly. "Fine. I can salvage this, and neither of you will have to go to Azkaban for it."

Both of them laughed, for a moment, before abruptly cutting their laughter off. Hermione's pitying smile told them she was sorry that they thought she was joking.

She stood from her desk. "On that note, I think you're due for a raise, Department Head Potter. Another thousand Galleons and another hundred pages of paperwork sound about right, yes?"

Their earlier humor squashed into the ground, he only nodded. He hated getting more money and paperwork, since he'd just donate the extra money and have to do even _more_ paperwork to do so.

Both of them stood and began to shuffle out, but her voice stopped them in their tracks.

"If something like this happens again, I'll sit _both_ of you behind desks for the rest of your natural lives, even if I have to find those Chess pieces we fought and _curse them to hold you both in place_. **Understood**?"

Both nodded and bolted, the last thing they heard being an indignant shout from Hermione as Harry summoned the Daily Prophet.

Ron gave him a funny look, but he just flipped through it, smirking all the while.

"I think I'll be going on a vacation in a few days. I've never see Asia, and I think I might like seeing the sights, Muggle and Magical, with Ginny."

Ron just blinked at him, confused as to how that was relevant, until he shoved the paper under his nose.

Right there, in the open letter portion of the paper, was a short and brutal letter declaring that Ron Weasley would regret taking away Russia's win in the International Tournament.

He just shook his head as Harry skipped off, and he slowly walked down the hall. He certainly hadn't ever considered his life would end up here, but he thought things had gone remarkably well, all things considered.

Hermione hadn't even figured out that-

His thoughts crashed to a halt as something papery smacked into his face. He nearly tripped, but he managed to catch the paper and his balance.

"Honestly," he groaned as he opened the paper up, "you'd think those memos would be a bit more reliable."

He looked down and whitened at the headline of the special evening edition of the Prophet.

"_Weasley beats Muggle Chess contraption. Is there anything he can't defeat?"_

Right. They'd broken into that Muggle place – and hadn't the American Ministry been oh so accommodating when they'd realized that a _Potter_ needed their help? – in order to beat that 'AlphaZero' com-putter contraption.

He'd done very well, apparently, by being able to draw three times and win twice, even if they'd accidentally done some magic around some very intricate looking machinery. Harry had left them tens of thousands of pounds, though, so-

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY!"

He gulped, spun on his heel, and hoped that Harry hadn't yet left the floor.

Maybe he'd go join him on that vacation too?

-OxOxO-

A/N: The extent to which other magical sports is explored is…

Well, Quidditch certainly gets a lot of focus, but I do wonder if there is anything like this, and why Ron wouldn't try for it, if he wants to be famous like Harry. He did, after all, play one of the best games of Chess Hogwarts ever saw.

The reference to the post about Hermione proving Pluto isn't a planet is obvious, and I take no credit for it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, leave a comment so I can read about how much you all did – or didn't – like this.


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